She turned to face him, puzzled. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘You and your husband saw him trying to break into cars. You called out the police.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Was that the man who was murdered?’
‘The same.’
‘I had no idea. Didn’t make the connection at all. Why was he doing such a stupid thing? We spotted him behaving suspiciously and thought it our public duty to report him.’
‘Did you speak to him?’
‘No, we kept our distance. At our age you don’t tangle with car thieves. I kept him under observation through my field glasses until your people arrived. I had no inkling that he was a fellow Knotter. What on earth possessed him to behave like that?’
‘He’d been hit on the head. We think he’d lost his memory.’
She thought about it with a troubled expression. ‘Oh dear. You’ve made me feel guilty for reporting him.’
‘No need, ma’am. You did the right thing as you saw it.’
At the other end, Ingeborg was fencing with another of the squad, a young man with a better technique. The exchange was longer this time, the blades flashing under the strip light. She took a couple of steps backwards and appeared to be on the retreat. A sudden forward movement signalled the riposte, a clever feint, drawing the opponent’s defence. He’d committed and she lunged again and had the point of her sword at his chest. He lowered his sword.
‘Good on you, girl!’ Agnes Swithin said, clapping.
The instructor wasn’t so delighted. ‘It’s not meant to be compet-i tive,’ he told Ingeborg. ‘You could cause damage like that. We’re exercising here, not trying out for the Olympics.’
‘Sorry.’
Agnes clicked her tongue and told Diamond, ‘He’s putting her down because she’s a woman. They hate it if you show any talent.’
‘You’ve obviously fenced with the foil before,’ the instructor was saying to Ingeborg. ‘Have you used a backsword?’
She shook her head.
‘You’d know it better as a rapier, the Civil War weapon of choice, but you won’t get to use one in battle unless you transfer to the cavalry. Can you ride?’
‘A bit.’
‘You might like to make enquiries.’
At Diamond’s side, Agnes took a sharp, accusing breath. ‘There speaks an infantry officer. Doesn’t want her showing him up. Actually she’d look good on a horse. At least a third of our cavalry are ladies.’
‘Really?’
‘Think about it. You see far more horsewomen than men out and about, don’t you?’
After losing one of his team already this week he wasn’t sure he wanted Ingeborg fighting duels on horseback. ‘She looks more like infantry to me. Do you have a say in these decisions?’
‘No, I’m a minor player.’
‘Were you there for the big one, in 1993?’
‘All these questions. This is about the skeleton they dug up on Lansdown, isn’t it? Yes, I was there for the major muster and I remember it well. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, and I can assure you I didn’t see any foul play. I was too busy with my casualties.’
‘Real casualties?’
She flapped her hand. ‘A few dents and bruises. Nothing serious. If there is, I wave to the St John Ambulance man. There’s always one on hand.’
‘So you didn’t spot anyone behaving suspiciously in the battle?’
‘I’d remember if I did. It all passed off very smoothly and we had a lovely write-up in the paper. If you ask me, the Sealed Knot had nothing to do with that skeleton, whoever it is.’
If that’s the truth, he thought, I’m wasting my time here and so is Ingeborg. Soon after, he slipped out of the building and drove home.
Before ten next morning, DC Paul Gilbert called the incident room and asked to speak to the boss. There was such a rasp of excitement in the young man’s voice that Diamond moved the phone away from his ear and still heard everything. ‘Guv, I’m at Lower Swainswick with a lady by the name of Mrs Jarvie. She worships at St John’s in South Parade. She had Nadia as a house guest for two weeks in 1993. It’s proof positive that she came to Bath.’
Diamond wasn’t immune to excitement himself. His voice gave nothing away, but his arms and legs were prickling. All the years of experience didn’t suppress the adrenalin surge that came with a discovery as big as this. ‘What’s the address? I’ll come now.’
Lower Swainswick is a one-time village long since absorbed by Bath’s urban sprawl, on rising ground to the north-east. He kept telling himself to think about his driving as he headed out along the London Road and between the lines of parked cars in the built-up streets of Larkhall, but of course the reason for the trip kept breaking his concentration. This was it. The timing was right – 1993, nicely inside the time span Lofty Peake had given for the death of the skeleton woman. And it fitted what he’d learned in London about the Ukrainian call girl who’d made her escape to the West Country. This local landlady sounded like a terrific find. With any luck she’d finger Nadia’s murderer.
Paul Gilbert’s car was outside a cottage in Deadmill Lane that was almost entirely covered in clematis. The young constable himself came to the door – the man of the hour, in Diamond’s estimation.
He was a shade less triumphant than he’d sounded on the phone. ‘I’d better warn you, guv. She’s elderly – well, very old, in actual fact – only I feel sure she’s all there mentally.’
‘That’s okay, then.’
‘She’s also deaf.’
‘I can cope with that. Are you going to let me in, or do you want to go over her entire medical history?’
A sheepish smile from Gilbert. He reversed a step and started to lead the way in. Remembering something else, he turned and started up again. ‘Incidentally, I haven’t told her what happened to Nadia.’
‘If you know for sure, I wish you’d tell me,’ Diamond said.
He hadn’t got far when his eyes started to water. The cottage reeked of cat pee. Or was it curtains in need of laundering?
‘Pongs a bit.’
‘You get used to it,’ Gilbert said, leading the way through a short passage into a back room where the old lady evidently sat by day and slept by night. She was out of bed, dressed in a pink cardigan and blue tracksuit trousers and seated in a rocking-chair with a large white cat on her lap. Two tortoiseshells perched on the windowsill and a sleeping Persian had the eiderdown to itself. The odds had lengthened against the curtains as the source of the odour.
Paul Gilbert hadn’t exaggerated. Mrs Jarvie was very old. She looked halfway to heaven already. The chalk-white skin hung in overlapping folds under the eyes and below the jaw.
Gilbert introduced Diamond and the only reaction this prompted was some adjustment to the hearing aid. At least she could move her hands.
‘He wants to ask you about Nadia,’ Gilbert shouted.
The old lady opened her eyes and spoke, and it was only to say, ‘You don’t have to shout.’
‘Nadia,’ Gilbert shouted again. To Diamond he said, ‘I don’t think the hearing aid works.’
Mrs Jarvie said, ‘I was ninety-six in July.’
‘It takes an effort,’ Gilbert said to Diamond, ‘but it’s worth it.’ He moved closer. ‘Nadia, the Ukrainian girl.’
‘Are you asking about Nadia again?’ she said. ‘I told you all about her.’
‘You said she was here in 1993. Is that right?’
‘I gave her the spare room,’ Mrs Jarvie said. ‘She wasn’t with me very long. She was easier than some of my guests because she spoke good English.’
‘How do you know it was 1993?’ Confirming which year Nadia came to Bath was fundamental to the enquiry and couldn’t be bypassed, so after getting a blank look he nodded to Gilbert to come in with his toastmaster impression.
This time the message seemed to get through. ‘I had my eightieth birthday the weekend before she came. I particularly remember giving her a piece of my birthday cake and a glass of sherry when she arrived.’